Cybersecurity Is Not A One-Time Fix

A comprehensive approach to security helps beat cybercriminals at their game.

“Every company has at least one employee who will click on anything,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft president and chief legal officer, at a company conference in July.

Although employees may be the weakest link in an organization’s cybersecurity front lines, the evolution of malware and cybercrime are putting even the most security-conscious organizations at risk. Traditional approaches to security, which typically focus on keeping the bad guys out, often lead to too many layers and components, and too much complexity.

The cyberthreat landscape is growing: more than 390,000 new malicious programs are registered every day, and the number of new malware specimen is expected to reach more than 7.4 million this year. Last year more than 4 billion records were stolen by cybercriminals, and by 2019 cybercrime is expected to become a $2.1 trillion problem.

Meanwhile, the WannaCry ransomware attack in May — which infected 250,000 machines in less than 30 minutes, and more than 2 million computers in over 150 countries within 24 hours — demonstrated that cybersecurity isn’t the priority it should be. According to a survey conducted by E1 among 400 IT professionals in the United States:

• 86% of respondents say they weren’t ready to deal with WannaCry• 73% of management teams have not made additional cybersecurity resources available